Pondicherry University’s Silver Jubilee Campus set to be powered by solar energy

According to reports, Pondicherry University’s Silver Jubilee Campus is looking at converting itself into a solar campus where they generate the energy required for their functioning from the sun. The project will be supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

This will be the first project in the country for a solar powered university campus under the MNRE scheme, co-prinicipal investigator of the project G. Poyyamoli told The Hindu on Tuesday.

After an initial survey of the area along with consultant Dwipen Boruah, it has been determined that if all the rooftops (including the car parks and bike parks) on the Silver Jubilee Campus had solar panels and a separate solar ring was installed in the central lawn space, it was possible to generate 1MW of power.

MNRE would potentially fund 30 per cent of the project, Mr. Boruah said.

The MNRE was currently giving the University Rs. 10 lakh to prepare the Master Plan and the Detailed Project Report.

They were also considering small wind turbines on the periphery of the Campus, for which they would get a 50 per cent subsidy.

The 1 MW solar power potential would generate around 1,570 Megawatt hours of power per year, which was more than the requirement of the Silver Jubilee Campus. Any excess power that was generated could be given to the general grid.

One of the main issues of solar energy is that it is only available during the day.

This is when there was peak usage in the industrial area, so by giving any excess power generated during the day to the general grid, they would be helping the community.

Also, at night when there was no power generated from the solar panels, they could receive power from the grid, he said.

According to principal investigator on the project R. Arun Prasath, the proposal that was submitted to the MNRE also included two 100 cc biogas plants and solar steam cookers.

The Dean of the Madanjeet Singh Centre of Green Energy Technology H.S.P. Rao said that the University was separately working on a prototype solar energy project by providing rooftop solar panels to the newly constructed Controller of Examination office as well as the main office.